Susan Smalley & Stacie Madison : Missing Girls

By Pete Dove

Best friends forever. The bond between teenage girls can be strong. And often is. That was certainly the situation between eighteen-year-old Susan Smalley and her great mate, Stacie Madison, who was just a year younger.
The two were classic late eighties girls. Lots of carefully styled hair, innocent smiles and a love of life. Their bubbly personalities and bright intellects lit up wherever they went.  
A friend was holding a party in Arlington, which lies to the west of Dallas. It is a fair drive from Carrollton - to the north west of the city - to the small town, which sits mid-way between Dallas and Fort Worth. But they were teens, and possibly thought nothing of the forty-minute journey they would have to make. So, after changing at Susan's home, they headed off there. The girls stayed at the party for just a short while and left at around 10pm to drive back to Stacie's house. But at midnight, the youngsters did something out of character. Although they had been told to be home by midnight - a reasonable enough expectation for such young adults – they decided to return to the party. It was an odd decision, being so far – close to another ninety minutes of driving there and back, in the dead of night. Still, that is what they appeared to set off to do. Perhaps, though, they changed their mind – or at least had doubts. Because, on the way, they stopped at a Steak and Ale restaurant where Susan worked part time as a waitress.
She chatted to a boy who was a co-worker for a while, and Madison waited in the car. Then the two girls went on their way. As far as is known, their plan was to head back to the party.
Neither girl was seen again.
What happened to Stacie Madison & Susan Smalley?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trellis Publishing
• Release date: Jul 12, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201619497

Book preview

SUSAN SMALLEY & STACIE MADISON : MISSING GIRLS

PETE DOVE

TABLE OF CONTENTS

SUSAN SMALLEY & STACIE MADISON

TANIA HERMAN

GIRL STRANGLER

LEE ANN REIDEL

KILL HIM JILL

JODI ARIAS

VERNICE BALLENGER

Stacie and Susan – Forever Together

Best friends forever.  The bond between teenage girls can be strong.  And often is.  That was certainly the situation between eighteen-year-old Susan Smalley and her great mate, Stacie Madison, who was just a year younger.

The two were classic late eighties girls.  Lots of carefully styled hair, innocent smiles and a love of life.  Their bubbly personalities and bright intellects lit up wherever they went. 

In the spring of 1988, the two were entering their last few months before graduating from the Newman Smith High School in Carrollton, Texas.  Each had their plans and were excited by them.  Even though their futures might see them temporarily separated as each pursued their dreams, the fun-loving couple were sure that their friendship would survive any short-term parting.

Susan was already an honour roll student at her school.  She was a great ambassador, a young woman who loved meeting new people.  She worked as a waitress and planned to develop her burgeoning confidence by moving to the sunny climes of Florida, there to work more widely with people.  Her cheerful outlook and sociability made her a popular girl.  Her brother, Rich, recalls just how popular his sister had become. ‘She was there for her friends at all times,’ he said. 

Stacie had slightly more orthodox and clearly defined ambitions.  For her, college was the route she wished to pursue.  She had secured a part time post working for a successful allergist in her hometown and wanted to further her chances of following a career in this important field.  Stacie was highly committed to her ambitions, and often had to put social commitments on hold.  It was not always easy.  With her stunning smile, and classic American good looks – blonde hair and blue eyes to the fore – she had plenty of demands for dates with which to deal.

Her mother recalled how she would tactfully turn down the enquiries of the numerous boys who knocked on her door. ‘She was a wonderful daughter,’ remembered Ida Madison poignantly.

But on the 19th March 1988 the girls decided that they could enjoy a night out.  It was the last day of the spring school vacation, and soon they would be back in classes. 

Carrollton is an interesting place. It is frequently identified as one of the best places to live in the US.  It is a fair-sized city, with a population of around 120000.  But the feel of the city is as though it is much smaller.  Perhaps that is down to its earliest days.  The community was founded in the middle of the nineteenth century by a number of wealthy landowners, many of whom had originated in another Carrollton – this one in Illinois.

It was, for a third of a century, a wholly agricultural place with the homeliness such an existence brings.  That has not changed, although the economic nature of the fledgling city did when the Dallas to Wichita railroad passed through the settlement in 1878.  Straight away, Carrollton began to grow.  But slowly. Its traditional agricultural heritage was chased, caught and quickly surpassed by industrial developments. 

In under ten years the inhabitants swelled from a few homesteads to a permanent population of 150.  A school was built, along with two churches and a number of mills and cotton gins.  Soon, a second railway criss-crossed the first, and Carrollton expanded further.  It became a centre for livestock, cotton and grain.  It was the place in Texas that became the logistical heart for the shipping of goods.

But despite this, that small town feel remained.  Probably because the population remained relatively tiny.  Half a century ago, still just 14000 people lived there.

Then came the surge.  In the next decade, numbers rose by nearly 200 per cent.  By the time Susan and Stacie went missing, more than 80000 people lived within Carrollton’s pleasant boundaries.  It is now subsumed into being a suburb of Dallas - a very desirable one, at that – and today its population has grown by another fifty percent.

People from Carrollton are comfortably off.  Poverty in the city is rare, and families are often stable.  Simply, it is a lovely place to live.  There was not the slightest suspicion of the horror that was to unfold on that March night more than thirty years ago.

As we know, Stacie and Susan were sensible girls.  Their heads were firmly screwed on.  So, their night on the town was carefully planned.  Stacie enjoyed ownership of a splendid, daffodil yellow 1967 convertible Mustang (which might have been as much an attraction to the various boys whose tongues lolled out of their mouths at the sight of her as her physical good looks.)  The girls set off in the car for an early evening shop at the Prestonwood centre.  From there, they ran Susan’s mother home from her work at a department store located in the mall.

Carolyn Audett was going out herself that evening, but it did not stop her from reminding the girls to take care of themselves.  However, given Carrollton’s relative safety, the common sense of the girls and the light evening, she had little worry.  Certainly ‘not knowing I’d never see them again,’ was not a thought which crossed Carolyn’s mind.  There was no reason why it should.

A friend was holding a party in Arlington, which lies to the west of Dallas.  It is a fair drive from Carrollton - to the north west of the city - to the small town, which sits mid-way between Dallas and Fort Worth.  But they were teens, and possibly thought nothing of the forty-minute journey they would have to make.  So, after changing at Susan’s home, they headed off there.  The girls stayed at the party for just a short while and left at around 10pm to drive back to Stacie’s house.  But at midnight, the youngsters did something out of character.  Although they had been told to be home by midnight - a reasonable enough expectation for such young adults – they decided to return to the party.  It was an odd decision, being so far – close to another ninety minutes of driving there and back, in the dead of night.  Still, that is what they appeared to set off to do.  Perhaps, though, they changed their mind – or at least had doubts.  Because, on the way, they stopped at a Steak and Ale restaurant where Susan worked part time as a waitress.

She chatted to a boy who was a co-worker for a while, and Madison waited in the car. Then the two girls went on their way.  As far as is known, their plan was to head back to the party.

Neither girl was seen again.

Susan had been wearing a white sweater set off by blue jeans.  She was carrying a blue shoulder bag with a camel coloured trim.  Stacie too was wearing a white top, a long-sleeved sweatshirt with a notable pink and orange logo.  She was wearing white pants, cotton, and white tennis shoes.  Both were dressed to look casual, but smart. 

The next morning, Stacie and Susan’s panicked parents realised something was wrong.  Neither girls’ beds had been slept in, and nobody knew where they were.  ‘I kept pacing and looking out the window, hoping to see her drive up,’ remembered Ida.

The parents contacted the police to report their girls missing, and Stacie’s easily identified Mustang was soon found.  It had been abandoned on a popular strip in the north west of Dallas, Forest Lane.  Back in the 1980s this part of the large city was home to movie theatre, popular burger joints and drive through restaurants.

The Mustang contained the girls’ jackets, and the doors were locked.  It appeared, to all intents and purposes, that the car had been parked normally. 

Police in cities such as Dallas are hard pressed.  They are used to teenagers behaving badly.  Even in such a nice neighbourhood as Carrollton police were familiar with teenagers acting up.  And so, as was too often the case in the hard-bitten days at the end of Ronald Reagan’s reign, officers from both departments jumped to a conclusion.

Two teenage girls out partying late at night?  They had found a couple of boys and were by now shacked up somewhere.  Or perhaps, in a fit of teenage pique, they had done a runner.  In a short time, like most teenagers, they would be back.  As soon as they needed some money, or were hungry, they would come home with their tails between their legs.

Of course, Stacie and Susan’s parents knew that their daughters were not like that.  They were reliable girls, trustworthy as far as teens can ever be.  Nowadays, we know that teenagers’ frontal cortexes (a part of the brain) are underdeveloped.  It’s what makes them so unaware of risk and outright danger.  It is probably what led the girls to go out after their curfew in the first place.

It did not make them bad, just normal.  But in 1988 people did not have that knowledge of child development; Susan and Stacie were good girls.  If their car was abandoned and they were missing, then something bad had happened.

The mismatch in interpretations between parents and the police was great, however.  And crucial.  Because the police decided that there was no need to search the car in any detail.  No requirement to look for fingerprints.  No need to search for DNA.

When people go missing, the first twenty-four hours are crucial in finding them safe and well.  From today’s perspective, the police were negligent in jumping to a conclusion which saw the girls as being at fault for their disappearance.  Even back in the days of the late 80s those initial actions (‘inactions’ might be a better word) of investigators were viewed as dubious.

Some months after Stacie and Susan went missing, the case was handed over to Detective Greg Ward.  He was astonished that investigating officers had asked around so little, instead making crucial and very wrong assumptions about what had taken place.

‘I’m not saying they screwed up, but they probably could have handled it better,’ he said with studied understatement. Detective Ward realised that something sinister had taken place.  ‘They met someone and got more party than they bargained for,’ he observed with a somewhat unwarranted lack of tact. 

By this point even the local forces had decided that the